Gangster in the White House

Bebe Rebozo came in and out of the Nixon White House as he pleased, without being logged in by the Secret Service. At 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, he had his own private office with a telephone and a designated bedroom always at his disposal. He was both Nixon’s best friend and his bag man to the Mafia and Howard Hughes.

When Richard Nixon was president, a disreputable character named Charles Gregory “Bebe” Rebozo (a.k.a. Charles Gregory) all but lived in the White House. Not known beyond the executive mansion at that time—or to most people even now—Rebozo had working and sleeping quarters there. And he was plugged into the White House switchboard, which knew how to reach him anywhere at any time.

Rebozo was not a high-ranking government employee who deserved or required such free space or services. In fact, the only government entity that knew much about Bebe was the FBI, which said he was cozy with Mafia biggies—especially Tampa Godfather Santos Trafficante and Alfred (“Big Al”) Polizzi of Cleveland. Big Al was a drug trafficker associated with the Syndicate’s financial genius, Meyer Lansky. In 1964, the Bureau of Narcotics branded Polizzi “one of the most influential members of the underworld in the United States.”

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With the purpose of writing about true crime in an authoritative, fact-based manner, veteran journalists J. J. Maloney and J. Patrick O’Connor launched Crime Magazine in November of 1998. Their goal was to cover all aspects of true crime: Read More